🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <STUCKI.91Mar14120723@amygdala.cis.ohio-state.edu>, stucki@amygdala.cis.ohio-state.edu (David J Stucki) writes:
> 	The  use of non-standard libraries should  not  be a disadvantage,
> since the  "standard" ones are  rarely implemented correct  wrt Wirth.
> Cooper's IO module is much cleaner than either the InOut provided by 
> Metrowerks (for the MAC) or Sun.

I agree with the principle stated above; however, non-standard libraries ought
to have a standard implementation.  Without a standard set of libraries or,
minimally, a library which is implemented in the standard language, how can
any degree of portability between implementations be achieved?  It cannot be
achieved.

It is somewhat regrettable that Niklaus Wirth left the issue of libraries so
open-ended that programmers cannot rely upon a minimal set of libraries from
implementation to implementation.  Even in the C language, one can count on
input/output functions.  As the above excerpt suggests, one should not be able
to count on input/output (something so fundamental) being well-implemented by
compiler vendors.  Would it not make some sense that one ought to question the
abilities of a compiler writer who cannot design and implement simple libraries
to accompany his/her compiler?  Further, if the standard libaries cannot be 
implemented correctly, how on earth is a variation on the same theme to be
implemented?
-- 
George Thiruvathukal

Laboratory for Parallel Computing and Languages
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago